Book Review – The Designful Company

Mary Neumeier’s new book “The Designful Company” is the third of his books that I have read. The essence of the book in my opinion is built on the quote by the social scientist Herbert Simon -

“everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.

I do really like the idea that design is more than just graphic design, against the opinion of many of my friends. What I get out of this book, is that there is more to graphic, product, or web design than just art, but there is also more to management than the conventional wisdom of Peter Drucker. (who I think is a genius)

The main distinction in my mind about what Marty is getting at, is that everything in a company needs to be designed. Everything from distribution to how a product is packaged. Apple made this common sense, but many of us still aren’t designing solutions to problems.

Problems are all around us, and there is a case study for just about all of them. But next time, put down the HBR case study, and pull out a legal pad, and design a beautiful solution to what is plaguing your company. You really don’t have a choice, since people around you are catching on… you might as well get on board!